Laughing With My Last Breath

What is life’s second most important question?

The one that comes after “Who am I?”

I play these games with myself as a way of exploring what’s going on at the deepest level I can think of.  It’s a source of endless amusement.

The thing is, I do have an answer.  Whether it remains my number two for the rest of eternity, we shall see.  But right now, it’s fabulously significant.  It focuses my life in ways few other queries have.  Perhaps you’ll find it useful.

That question is: What am I trying to accomplish that I can control?

Naturally, the “I can control” part is the heart of the matter.

Legendary college basketball coach John Wooden never talked to his teams about winning.  He talked only about playing their best and all that’s required to do so.  Winning is always out of our control.  Playing our best never is.

Any way we attach our sense of well-being to something we cannot control––any worldly achievement, really––we are basically saying, “I’m willing for my happiness to be determined by external events, or somebody else.”  That’s a pretty self-abusive perspective, if you ask me.  Yet it is one that is all too common.

If you were to say, “What I’m trying to accomplish is to have my kids grow up happy,” I’d say that’s a dangerous aspiration.  Its achievement depends on factors beyond yourself.  There’s no way you can be responsible for such an outcome.  What if, instead, you said, “What I’m trying to accomplish is to do all I can to be the person, and create an environment, that gives my kids the best chance of growing up happy.”  That’s definitely something you can do.  And once you define how you’d know it if you saw it, you can develop a plan, and a way to assess how you’re doing.

This doesn’t guarantee your kids are going to grow up happy, nor does it mean you’ll be an effective parent.  It just means you’re trying to do something over which you have control: giving something your best shot—aspiring to take action with confidence that the action you’re taking is the healthiest choice for you in that moment.

Outcome, no matter what it is, is just something we learn from that serves what we’re trying to accomplish.  Even the most trustworthy physicians may tell us their ignorance has caused the death of a few patients along the way.

This is why answering “What am I trying to accomplish that I can control?” is so invaluable.  It defines what every action we take is intended to serve.  Personally and professionally, it’s our purpose, our life’s work.  It stays steady, no matter what the world around us is doing.

To give you a little deeper sense of what I’m talking about, here’s the beginning of my list as it stands today––what I’m trying to accomplish that I can control:

• • To be a person of love in the face of anything.
  • To become a master of: managing fear; learning from my experience; gaining ever-deeper understanding of what I cannot live without; aligning commitments with action and action with commitments.
  • To be of service to others by offering what I’ve learned from experience in whatever forms I’m able that might be useful.
  • To die unafraid.
  • To live in awe of what I and others carry rather than in judgment at how we carry it.
  • To become skilled at reframing any situation from the largest, most life-affirming, perspective possible.
  • To have no attachment to how life must be.
  • To grow kindness, compassion and generosity.
  • To see others and myself as exactly the same.
  • To live in the spirit of the universe as I experience it: playful, loving, deep.
  • To create beauty in my every response to life.
  • To laugh regularly from my heart.

This is why I find the concept of “retirement” so amusing.  What would I retire from?  This list, however long it gets, is all my life is about.  I’ll be doing my best to laugh from my heart with my last breath.

❦

Sharing my discoveries and welcoming yours is the purpose of this little playground.  I hope you’ll add your voice when it feels right.

If you’d like to explore working together, click on Q&A, or visit my other website, CoolMindWarmHeart.com